In March, Bonernator and I moved into a new apartment. We wanted to live downtown and were excited to have a place that was OURS, not formerly his or mine. It’s super close to work and my gym, and that’s about where the positives end for me.

It is SO SMALL. I thought it was fine when I saw it empty, but once we moved all our shit in, I realized I was badly mistaken. It is a straight up claustrophobic space. We can spend hours cleaning it and it’ll still look like a shithole.

Adding insult to injury, it is SO GODDAMN EXPENSIVE. Moving to the city always means spending more for less, but this is just ridiculous.

The way it’s positioned, hardly any natural light gets in. It’s basically a goth kid apartment. Thirteen year old Burnernator might have liked that, but now, not so much.

We have an in-unit washer/dryer (yes!) but it’s the “eco friendly” kind that takes 3 hours to finish drying a load.

There is a balcony, but it’s infested with mosquitoes and I get bitten up every time I’m out there for more than 5 minutes.

The floors are dark laminate and show your every footprint.

The smoke alarm will go off unprovoked.

I don’t get cell service in the damn place. I swear it wasn’t always like that.

The staff are unfriendly and unengaged. Additionally, I have literally never even seen, let alone met, our neighbors.

It’s double the travel time away from my family and wedding vendors, etc.

I’m ashamed to have people over, and I’m someone who loves to host. I’m looking into transferring to a different unit/building before our lease term is up but, with the wedding coming up, a move is just going to be really difficult to swing.

I’ve been having a really tough year in general and this apartment just feels like the shitty icing. I have perma-undereye circles. I swear I’m losing hair. I just feel like shit all the time. My mom took one look at me this weekend and said “you need to move.”

GTers who’ve made do with less-than-ideal living situations, how did you manage?